Oleksandra soon started working as an architect in Bruges. There she met Cliff Segers. They are now a couple and there are plans to get married.
“We will get married in September, normally,” says Oleksandra. “I had to prove myself for over a year. At first I didn’t see a partner in Cliff. He was a good man with an open heart, very helpful. I saw other sides of him. You can’t plan something like that.”
The rest of her family has also built a life in West Flanders. Yet concern for those left behind remains high.
“My grandmothers are still there. They say: we want to die where we were born. Every time I talk to my grandmother, she says she wants us to sit around the table together again someday. It’s so sad. She hasn’t seen us in four years.”
